Note 543 — Chapter VII

Mr. John Burns, in many respects the most striking personality in the Labour Movement, was born at Battersea in 1859, and was apprenticed to a local engineering firm. Already during his apprenticeship he made his voice heard in public, in 1877 being actually arrested for persistently speaking on Clapham Common, and in 1878 braving the “Jingo” mob at a Hyde Park demonstration. As soon as he was out of his time (1879) he joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and became an advocate of shorter hours of labour. An engagement as engineer on the Niger, West Africa, during 1880-81, gave him leisure to read, which he utilised by mastering Adam Smith and J. S. Mill. Returning to London, he worked side by side with Victor Delahaye, an ex-Communard, who was afterwards one of the French representatives at the Berlin Labour Conference, 1891, and with whom he had many talks on the advancement of labour. In 1883 he joined the Social Democratic Federation, and at once became its leading working-class member, championing its cause, for instance, in an impressive speech at the Industrial Remuneration Conference in 1885. In the same year he was elected by his district of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers as its representative at the quinquennial delegate meeting of the Society, where he found himself the youngest member. At the General Election of 1885 he stood as Socialist candidate for West Nottingham, receiving 598 votes. For the next two years he became known as the leader of the London “unemployed” agitation. His prosecution for sedition in 1886 (with three other prominent members of the Social Democratic Federation) aroused considerable interest, and on his acquittal his speech for the defence, The Man with the Red Flag, had a large sale in pamphlet form (1886; 16 pp.). At the prohibited demonstration at Trafalgar Square on “Bloody Sunday” (November 13, 1887), in conjunction with Mr. Cunninghame Graham, M.P., he broke through the police line, for which they were both sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment. In January 1889 he was elected for Battersea to the new London County Council, on which he became one of the most useful and influential members. His magnificent work in the dock strike and in organising the unskilled labourers is described in the text. At the General Election of 1892 he was chosen, by a large majority, M.P. for Battersea, and at the Trades Union Congress in 1893 he received the largest number of votes for the Parliamentary Committee, of which he accordingly became Chairman. In 1906 he was appointed President of the Local Government Board in Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman’s Government, with a seat in the Cabinet—thus becoming the first working-man Cabinet Minister—a post which he held until August 1914, when he resigned on the outbreak of war. He retained his seat in Parliament until 1918, when he retired.